WKAR World Ch. 23.2| November 2024 | PRIMETIME
Schedule as of 11/1/24. Schedule and descriptions subject to change.
2 | Sat
8:00 Native America: From Caves to Cosmos
Combine ancient wisdom and modern science to answer a 15,000-year-old question: who were America's First Peoples? The answer hides in Amazonian cave paintings, Mexican burial chambers, New Mexico's Chaco Canyon and waves off California's coast.
9:00 Native America: Nature to Nations
Explore the rise of great American nations. Investigate lost cities in Mexico, a temple in Peru, a potlatch ceremony in the Pacific Northwest and a tapestry of shell beads in upstate New York whose story inspired our own democracy.
3 | Sun
10:00 Independent Lens: One with the Whale
Hunting whales is a matter of survival for Alaska Native residents of St. Lawrence. A family is blindsided when animal activists target their son, the youngest ever to harpoon a whale for his village - a hunt that feeds the community through winter. Also included is the short film "Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go." Exploring the field of "climate psychology," this is a candid and comedic self-portrait in which the filmmaker turns the camera on herself and goes in search of a cure for her crippling climate anxiety.
4 | Mon
8:00 Local, USA: Scha'nexw Elhtal'nexw Salmon People: Preserving a Way of Life
Explore the spiritual and cultural connection between the Lummi people and salmon. Following Lummi families as they fish, the film highlights the challenges as the salmon population dwindles, raising the question of cultural survival amidst change.
5 | Tue
10:00 Playing Like A Girl: The House That Rob Built
In an era when gender discrimination in sports was the norm, Coach Selvig built a "house" of inclusion and empowerment at the University of Montana by recruiting female athletes from ranches, farms and Native reservations.
6 | Wed
8:00 Fighting Indians
Local Native American tribes push for change as a predominantly white community fights to keep its "Indian" mascot in a battle that exposes centuries of abuse while asking if reconciliation is possible.
7 | Thu
9:30 Native Ball: Legacy of a Trailblazer
A Native American girl from an isolated Blackfeet reservation uses her basketball skills as a ticket to a college education and the opportunity to give back to her people. Her chief described her as "a warrior."
8 | Fri
8:00 Searching for Sequoyah
SEARCHING FOR SEQUOYAH spans two countries and three Cherokee nations, leading viewers on a journey through the life and death of Sequoyah. This hour-long documentary allows viewers to learn more about Sequoyah through the written language he created for the Cherokee people, interviews with his descendants, cave writings depictions, and more.
9:00 Chasing Voices
From 1907 until his death more than 50 years later, ethnologist John Peabody Harrington crisscrossed the U.S., chasing the voices of the last speakers of Native America's dying languages. Moving from one tribal community to the next, he collaborated with the last speakers to document every finite detail before their languages were lost forever. CHASING VOICES chronicles Harrington's work and traces the impact of his exhaustive research on Native communities working to restore the language of their ancestors.
9 | Sat
8:00 Native America: Cities of the Sky
Discover the cosmological secrets behind America's ancient cities. Scientists explore some of the world's largest pyramids and 3D-scan a lost city of monumental mounds on the Mississippi River; native elders reveal ancient powers of the sky.
9:00 Native America: New World Rising
Discover how resistance, survival and revival are revealed through an empire of horse-mounted Comanche warriors, secret messages encoded in Aztec manuscript and a grass bridge in the Andes that spans mountains and centuries of time.
14 | Thu
8:00 America ReFramed: Daughter of a Lost Bird
9:30 Return: Native American Women Reclaim Foodways For Health & Spirit
At its heart, RETURN: NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN RECLAIM FOODWAYS FOR HEALTH & SPIRIT is a film about empowering people to overcome their current circumstances through eating as their ancestors did - nutritiously and locally. RETURN explores the food sovereignty movement occurring across the country through the stories of women championing the return to traditional food sources. The documentary features the charismatic Roxanne Swentzell from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, whose Pueblo Food Experience project is transforming lives in her community. Her efforts to reclaim ancient foodways are echoed across the continent by Tlingit, Muckleshoot, Oglala Sioux, Menominee and Seneca women who share Roxanne's passion and drive. Through personal, character-based storytelling, RETURN offers examples of alternative pathways to health and wellness for American Indians and demonstrates how returning to ancestral food sources can strengthen cultural ties to each other and to one's heritage.
16 | Sat
8:00 Native America: New Worlds
Native innovators lead a revolution in music, building, and space exploration. From the surface of Mars to the New York City hip hop scene to the Pine Ridge Reservation, Native traditions are transforming life on Earth and other worlds.
9:00 Native America: Warrior Spirit
Across Native America, warrior traditions support incredible athletes and connect people to combat, games, and glory. Celebrate and honor the men and women who live and breathe this legacy today.
10:00 America ReFramed: Daughter of a Lost Bird
17 | Sun
10:00 Battle Over Bears Ears
Explore the deep connections to place and the vast cultural divides that are fueling the fight over how the Bears Ears Monument is protected and managed. At its heart, it's a battle for homeland and sovereignty. Bears Ears, a remote section of land characterized by its distinctive red cliffs and abundance of juniper and sage, is at the center of a fight over who has a say in how Western landscapes are protected and managed. The Monument was first declared under President Obama, and then drastically reduced in size by President Trump. Now, under the Biden administration, the moment's fate is under review. Regardless of politics, questions remain--whose voices are heard, whose are lost, and how do all sides find common ground in this uncommon place?
18 | Mon
8:00 Local, USA: Firelighters: Fire Is Medicine
Indigenous people have deep knowledge of the art of using fire. Follow the work of women leaders from the Yurok and Karuk Tribes who are building resources to share indigenous practices and create policies to take back indigenous burning rights.
9:00 HBCU Week: Beyond The Field: Generations Stolen
Native American communities are grappling with the fallout of government policies which separated children from their families. On June 15, 2023, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to ICWA, a victory for Native communities working to overcome generations of trauma.
20 | Wed
8:30 Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire
Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire takes viewers on a journey with top experts and survivors to better understand how homes and communities ignite in fast moving wildfires and what steps we can take to prevent these disasters. Learn about the harrowing escape from Paradise, California; research examining why some homes burn and others don't; and Native American practices that have long used fire to restore landscapes and increase safety. Elemental explores the complicated relationship humans have with fire and how we can prepare our homes and communities.
21 | Thu
8:00 America ReFramed: Sisters Rising
Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women, and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. SISTERS RISING follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and systemic level.
9:00 Bring Her Home
BRING HER HOME follows three Indigenous women - an artist, an activist and a politician - as they work to vindicate and honor their relatives who are victims in the growing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. As they face the lasting effects of historical trauma, each woman searches for healing while navigating the oppressive systems that brought about this very crisis.
22 | Fri
8:00 Almost An Island
ALMOST AN ISLAND is a cinematic portrait of the Goodwins, an Inupiat family living above the Arctic Circle in Kotzebue, Alaska. Through observing three generations of one family over four years, the documentary explores what it means to be indigenous in the dramatically changing Arctic. Elmer Goodwin, 78, grew up in a sod house wearing animal skins. Now, his dog sled has transformed into a snow machine. His children are half white, but Elmer wants to teach his family everything he knows about being Inupiat. ALMOST AN ISLAND is an intimate portrayal of this multi-generational family, revealing their memories, dreams and goals, and challenging common stereotypes to show the Goodwins as complex, dignified individuals.
9:00 Stories I Didn't Know
In the hour-long documentary STORIES I DIDN'T KNOW, Rita Davern examines an ugly reality at the heart of a Minnesotan family legend. While her family members have always been proud to say that their ancestors once owned Pike Island, a beautiful piece of land in Minnesota, the story of its acquisition is far less glorious than its profitability. Rita's attempts to understand what happened and why leads her on a journey that requires facing the complicated legacy of westward expansion in the United States.
23 | Sat
8:00 Native America: Women Rule
Native women are leading, innovating, and inspiring in the arts, politics, and protecting the planet. NATIVE AMERICA explores the diverse ways they carry forward deep traditions to better their communities, their lands, and the world.
9:00 Native America: Language Is Life
Celebrate the power of Native languages and the inspirational people who are saving them. From secret recordings to Star Wars films dubbed in Navajo, follow the revolutionary steps transforming Native America.
10:00 America ReFramed: Sisters Rising
Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women, and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. SISTERS RISING follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and systemic level.
11:00 Bring Her Home
BRING HER HOME follows three Indigenous women - an artist, an activist and a politician - as they work to vindicate and honor their relatives who are victims in the growing epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. As they face the lasting effects of historical trauma, each woman searches for healing while navigating the oppressive systems that brought about this very crisis.
24 | Sun
10:00 Sand Creek Massacre
What led approximately 600-plus volunteer soldiers to attack a peaceful settlement of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in the Southeastern Colorado Territory? On November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington led an unprovoked attack that resulted in the deaths of more than 150 women, children and the elderly. SAND CREEK MASSACRE revisits the horrific acts of that day and uncovers the history 150 years later. The hour-long program gives insight into the history and describes in detail the actions and the events - the discovery of gold in the west, the push for Colorado statehood by Governor John Evans, and the belief in manifest destiny - that led to this infamous massacre. The documentary provides an in-depth look at the story's real-life villains and heroes through moving oral histories shared by 22 Sand Creek descendants, an interview with David. F. Halass, PhD, a Northern Cheyenne Consultant and Colorado Chief Historian and archival photos and letters.
11:00 Surviving New England's Great Dying
It's been more than 400 years since the first Thanksgiving. And there is a lot we are learning about that time. Just prior to the Pilgrim's arrival, a plague decimated New England's coastal Native American population, altering the course of colonialism. This is the story of the Great Dying and how tribal leaders are learning from the past as they deal with the effects of today's pandemic.
25 | Mon
8:00 Groundworks
GROUNDWORKS profiles four California Native co-creators of the Groundworks project - an immersive, year-long media collaboration that culminated with a performance on Alcatraz Island on San Francisco's first official Indigenous Peoples Day in October 2018. While weaving together these artists' stories and their contemporary ways of sharing traditional knowledge, GROUNDWORKS also explores land management issues, water rights, and food-security - concerns for all Americans, especially in an age of climate change.
9:00 Without A Whisper: Konnon:kwe
Kanon:Kwe is an untold story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists in their fight for freedom and equality. Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner shake the foundation of the established history of the women's right movement in the United States. They join forces on a journey to shed light on the hidden history of the influence of Haudenosaunee Women on the women's rights movement, possibly changing this historical narrative forever.
Schedule as of 11/1/24. Schedule and descriptions subject to change.